autoEdit 2: Digital Paper-editing software

Paper-editing is tedious and time consuming. But none the less it still remains the most effective way to craft a compelling story out of video interviews.

In the last couple of years I've been working on autoEdit2 a fast text based video editing that makes it easier, faster and more accessible to edit video interviews by leveraging the power of automated transcriptions.

In a digital and analogue workflow the underlying editing process should largely stay the same. With the digital workflow removing bottle necks, and enhancing story crafting possibilities.

Let's consider this in more details with a comparison between the two.

Analogue Paper-edit recap

In the analogue workflow the biggest bottle necks are in the transcription stage, and the assembling of the video sequence stage.

Digital Paper-edit

A digital solution removes these blockers and the cognitive overload associated with it, freeing up the producer to focus on the story.

Digital vs Analogue workflow

Some of the benefits of the digital workflow are

Transcriptions

Automated transcriptions, either as first draft to review or as good enough usable text.

Highlighting

Identifying and highlighting key concepts and categorising them is made easier by search and filter functionalities*.

Paper-edit preview

Digital connection between video and transcriptions (through time-codes and file names) allows to generate a video preview of the digital paper-edit without having to ingest it in a third party editing software.

This shorten the feedback loop. A paper-edit might "work" on paper but might require adjustments once it's assembled as a sequence.

This allows to spend more time crafting the story and less reconnecting clips in a video editing software.

Importing paper-edit into video editing software.

Edl, Edit decision list, it's a data interchange format that allows to open a video sequence in a video editing software.

Being able to export the digital paper-edit in this format enables the video producer to save a lot of time in converting a paper-editing to a video sequence int he video editing software of choice.

In the analogue workflow this is done manually and it's a huge bottle neck.

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